The Pleasures of England: Lectures given in OxfordRuskin, John
General
The Pleasures of England: Lectures given in Oxford
Ruskin, John
England -- Civilization
"Wherefore the great and mighty God; He that made man a reasonable
creature of soul and body, and He that did neither let him pass
unpunished for his sin, nor yet excluded him from mercy; He that gave,
both unto good and bad, essence with the stones, power of production
with the trees, senses with the beasts of the field, and understanding
with the angels; He from whom is all being, beauty, form, and number,
weight, and measure; He from whom all nature, mean and excellent,
all seeds of form, all forms of seed, all motion, both of forms and
seeds, derive and have being; He that gave flesh the original beauty,
strength, propagation, form and shape, health and symmetry; He
that gave the unreasonable soul, sense, memory, and appetite; the
reasonable, besides these, fantasy, understanding, and will; He,
I say, having left neither heaven, nor earth, nor angel, nor man,
no, nor the most base and contemptible creature, neither the bird's
feather, nor the herb's flower, nor the tree's leaf, without the true
harmony of their parts, and peaceful concord of composition:--It is
in no way credible that He would leave the kingdoms of men and their
bondages and freedom loose and uncomprised in the laws of His eternal
providence."[5]
[Footnote 5: From St. Augustine's 'Citie of God,' Book V., ch. xi.
(English trans., printed by George Eld, 1610.)]
This for the philosophy.[6] Next, I take for example of the Religion
of our ancestors, a prayer, personally and passionately offered to the
Deity conceived as you have this moment heard.
[Footnote 6: Here one of the "Stones of Westminster" was shown and
commented on.]
"O Thou who art the Father of that Son which has awakened us, and
yet urgeth us out of the sleep of our sins, and exhorteth us that we
become Thine;" (note you that, for apprehension of what Redemption
means, against your base and cowardly modern notion of 'scaping
whipping. Not to take away the Punishment of Sin, but by His
Resurrection to raise us out of the sleep of sin itself! Compare the
legend at the feet of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah in the golden
Gospel of Charles le Chauve[7]:--
"HIC LEO SURGENDO PORTAS CONFREGIT AVERNI
QUI NUNQUAM DORMIT, NUSQUAM DORMITAT IN ÆVUM;")
"to Thee, Lord, I pray, who art the supreme truth; for all the truth
that is, is truth from Thee. Thee I implore, O Lord, who art the
highest wisdom. Through Thee are wise all those that are so. Thou art
the true life, and through Thee are living all those that are so. Thou
art the supreme felicity, and from Thee all have become happy that
are so. Thou art the highest good, and from Thee all beauty springs.
Thou art the intellectual light, and from Thee man derives his
understanding.
[Footnote 7: At Munich: the leaf has been exquisitely drawn and legend
communicated to me by Professor Westwood. It is written in gold on
purple.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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